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Huckleberry Hound
Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic dog that speaks with a Southern drawl and has a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality. He first appeared in the series The Huckleberry Hound Show. The cartoon was one of six TV shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming"; the first animated series to receive such an award. Most of his short films consisted of Huck trying to perform jobs in different fields, ranging from policeman to dogcatcher, with results that backfired, yet usually coming out on top, either through slow persistence or sheer luck. Huck did not seem to exist in a specific time period as he has also been a Roman gladiator, a medieval knight, and a rocket scientist. He never appeared in futuristic cartoons, only those set in the present or the past. One regular antagonist in the series was "Powerful Pierre", a tall and muscular unshaven character with a French accent. Another regular villain was "Dinky Dalton", a rough and tough western outlaw that Huck usually has to capture, and Crazy Coyote, an Indian who Huck often had to defeat who was his match. There were also two crows with Mafia accents who often annoyed Farmer Huck. Another trademark of Huck was his tone deaf and inaccurate rendition of "Oh My Darling, Clementine", often used as a running gag. Background Official Description Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic dog that speaks with a Southern drawl and has a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality. He first appeared in the series The Huckleberry Hound Show. The cartoon was one of six TV shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming"; the first animated series to receive such an award. The term "huckleberry" can be a slang expression for a rube or an amateur, or a mild expression of disapproval. Most of his short films consisted of Huck trying to perform jobs in different fields, ranging from policeman to dogcatcher, with results that backfired, yet usually coming out on top, either through slow persistence or sheer luck. Huck did not seem to exist in a specific time period as he has also been a Roman gladiator, a Medieval knight, and a rocket scientist. He never appeared in futuristic cartoons, only those set in the present or the past. One regular antagonist in the series was "Powerful Pierre", a tall and muscular unshaven character with a French accent. Another regular villain was "Dinky Dalton", a rough and tough western outlaw that Huck usually has to capture, and Crazy Coyote, an Indian who Huck often had to defeat who was his match. There were also two crows with Mafia accents who often annoyed Farmer Huck. Another trademark of Huck was his tone deaf and inaccurate rendition of "Oh My Darling, Clementine", often used as a running gag. He also commonly used the phrase "and stuff like that thar" in place of "and so on". This phrase showed up quite often in many Hanna-Barbera productions of this time, but Huckleberry said it more often than anyone else. One of his careers had his job position on the door listed as "TS & SLTT". When asked what it stood for, Huck said "Top secrets and stuff like that thar." Various Hanna-Barbera characters were known for breaking the fourth wall, frequently turning to the viewing audience to make comments and asides. Huck took this to somewhat of an extreme, and a significant part of a typical cartoon was his running narrative to the audience about whatever he was trying to accomplish. Development Concept and creation In 1953, Tex Avery created a character known as the Southern Wolf for his MGM cartoons The Three Little Pups and Billy Boy. Introduced as an antagonist to Droopy, the wolf had a southern drawl and laid back mannerisms provided by Daws Butler. The most memorable trait of the character was that whenever something painful or unpleasant happened to him he never lost his cool, instead he calmly talked to the audience or kept whistling the song 'Year of Jubilo'. After Avery left MGM, Hanna and Barbera produced two more shorts with the character. In two of his cartoons (Billy Boy and Blackboard Jumble) the wolf plays a role that was exactly like a usual Huckleberry Hound short, aside from his frequent use of slang, and the echo-like repetition of words he only had in Billy Boy. While Sheep Wrecked was the wolf's final appearance, Huckleberry can be considered his reincarnation. Huckleberry's name is a reference to classic American novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain. Hanna and Barbera almost named Yogi Bear "Huckleberry Bear". He was voiced in the original cartoons in 1957 by Daws Butler, who had given a similar voice and characterization to the dog character in Ruff and Reddy. The voice for Huck was actually inspired by a neighbor of Butler's wife, Myrtis Martin, in Albemarle, North Carolina, her hometown. Butler would visit Myrtis and her family, and would talk to the neighbor who was a veterinarian. Butler found the man's voice amusing, and would remember it when it came time to voice Huck. The voice bore similarities to that of Andy Griffith, who likewise based his character accent on a rural North Carolina town (in Griffith's case, Mount Airy), and Hanna-Barbera was known for its characters' voices being parodies of known celebrities; Butler, who had been using the accent for about a decade before Griffith became famous, denied using Griffith as an inspiration. Voice Characterization Personality Physical appearance Powers and abilities History Appearances Television ''The Huckleberry Hound Show Other television appearances Yogi's Gang Laff-A-Lympics/''Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics/''Scooby's All-Stars The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera Yogi's Space Race Galaxy Goof-Ups Yo Yogi! Johnny Bravo Evil Con Carne Films and Specials Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose Yogi's First Christmas The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound Printed Media Comic Books Books Relationships Trivia *Huck shares the same name with Huckleberry Finn, a character from the ''Tom Sawyer novels written by Mark Twain. 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